Experience

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http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/IWD2/tweaked_xp_tables.php

But I dunno, that feels kind of like cheating to me, since you are really downloading an outside mod that basically gives more XP.
It could be argued that level squatting and even more so taking level 1 chars with you is cheating also, but to me it feels better.

 

I wouldn't call level squatting a cheat, since you are after all defeating powerful monsters at a lower level than "optimal", which requires considerably more care and strategy.

As for muling, I do consider this to be a cheat pure and simple. I guess it's a matter of personal preference, but I never used it.

 

@Menion Leah

How did your party end up, XP wise? I finished normal with:

#1 Level 23 ~328,000 XP
#2 Level 13 ~329,000 XP
#3 Level 23 ~333,000 XP
#4 Level 2 ~295,000 XP
#5 Level 2 ~204,000 XP
#6 Level 2 ~204,000 XP

I am now taking this party into HoF. I will take the level-ups for the fourth character and keep squatting the fifth and sixth characters.

 

I just finished the game and I have *only* 265,000xp on my four characters. I stopped muling and level squatting, so that may be the reason why you're characters have so much more XP, or did you do something special?

 

could someone explain what level squatting is please, im lost. heh

 

Level-squatting is when you do not level up your characters as soon as they get enough XP for the next level. By keeping them at a lower level, they gain more XP per kill. The idea is that the character will gain more XP overall and end up on a higher level at some future stage of the game.

 

@ Menion Leah

That must be the difference. I finished the game with three level two mules which gave me a party average level of 11. That low of an average level meant that I kept earning *lots* of XP throughout the Severed Hand.

@ Enagonios

Harbourboy is absolutely correct. I would just add the following. The game system does not give a fixed amount of experience points per monster, like the BG series does. Rather, the amount of experience each monster is worth is based on comparing the difficulty of the monster to the average level of your party. If your party is of higher level than the monster's difficulty you get less experience; if the monster's difficulty is higher than your party's level, you get more.
To make things worse, if your party's level gets so much higher than the monster's difficulty, you reach a point where you stop getting any experience at all.

Two main methods have been devised to deal with this problem. The first is called level squatting and is exactly what Harbourboy described. By keeping your party's levels low, you will benefit from fighting monsters which are too "difficult" for your current level. That results in more experience from each kill.

The other method to deal with the problem is called muling. The game system looks at the average level of your party in determining the amount of experience to grant. Therefore, if you have a couple of party members that are very low level, they will bring down the average level of the party. For example, a party of six characters, each at fifth level would have an average party level of five (duh). However, a party of six characters which are at levels 10, 10, 9, 2, 2, 2 also has an average party level of five (35/6, but the game does not round, it drops fractions). The three characters at level two are called "mules." The disadvantage is that there are three second level characters who are more vulnerable than anyone in the first party and who will need to be protected. However, having three characters at twice the level of anyone in the first party means that they can carry the fight and are much more devastating. Even though the parties have the same average level, the party with the mules is much more powerful since a tenth level character is much more than twice as powerful as a fifth level character (power levels do not increase linearly, but geometrically, and in the case of arcane casters, exponentially -- a 20th level sorcerer is an awfully lot more powerful than a 10th level sorcerer, not simply twice as powerful).

By combining squatting with muling one can create a party which is both very powerful and yet still gets good experience points for monster killing.

 

You also don't always have to protect your mules. You can usually just leave them behind at the entrance of an area.